MEDC: stands for More Economically Developed  Country. These courtiers have better education, sufficient food for the whole country, more money and better equipped to survive a natural disaster.   

LEDC: stands Less Economically Developed  Country. These countries are the complete opposite of MEDC because they have little or no education, barley have enough food for them to live, they have money but the money is not used properly.   

MEDC example is Japan and LEDC examples is Haiti

             JAPAN TSUNAMI


 

                        HAITI EARTHQUAKE

CASE STUDY MEDC  

Japan

THE EARTHQUAKE

The earthquake that happened in the ocean had a magnitude of 9. The amount of energy released was 600,000,000 times the amount of energy released in the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. The Quake lasted almost 5 minutes and within 45 mins of the earthquake there were 3 aftershocks of about magnitude of 7. The earthquake moved the entire island of Honshu one of the 4 main islands of Japan 2.4 meters closer to the U.S and shifted earths axis by almost 10-25 cm.

                                                               

   

THE TSUNAMI

The peak height of the tsunami was around 40.5 meters which is about the size of your average 13 storey building. The tsunami made it about 10 kilometers inland at Sendai the closest city to the epicenter of the earthquake. The people of Sendai had only 8 minutes after the earthquake stooped and the wave hit. The tsunami also hit the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The size of the wave that hit the power plant was about 15 meters and caused 3 of the power plants nuclear reactors to meltdown because the reactors overheated and started to release radioactive particles into the atmosphere. 

THE AFTERMATH OF THE EARTHQUAKE AND TSUNAMI

After the chaos ended and the water drained away the true affect of the earthquake were realized. The cost of rebuilding was about $500billion. This was the the biggest in the world. The number of buildings destroyed were near 45,700 and the number of deaths was around 15,182 and the number of people missing was around 3,760. Out of the people that were killed 373 were children and there were 158 children missing. There were nearly 230,000 cars and trucks destroyed.

THE REBUILD 

The world bank says that rebuilding japan after the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami may take up to 5 years. Sendai the worst hit place in Japan was recovering really well after the earthquake mainly because of the inflow of all the construction workers, the money that the government is giving and even the people of the people that were evacuated during the earthquake helping in every way thy can. Sendai was and still is the center of Japans recovery. The cost will be around $500billion to recover japan fully. lots of efforts have been made by ngo's, government organisations and even volunteers to recover just look at the video and you will see the results just after 3 months.

CASE STUDY LEDC

Haiti

THE EARTHQUAKE

The earthquake was a magnitude of about 7.0 and the epicenter was only 10 miles away from Porte-au-Prince and the 2 million residents. the energy released was more than the Hiroshima bomb and the earthquake covered and area of about 100 square kilometers.  293383 houses were damaged or destroyed and 1.5 million people became homeless.

THE AFTERMATH OF THE EARTHQUAKE

3,500,000 people were affected by the earthquake and almost 220,000 people died and over 300,000 people were injured. over 19 million cubic meters of rubble had to be cleaned. 4000 schools were destroyed and 600,000 people lief their homes in Porte-au-Prince most living in shelters and refuge camps. 

to see more click older posts

THE REBUILD

The rebuild of Haiti will cost billions of  dollars and take up to 10 years. the main cause of building destruction in Haiti was because of design errors. The money needed right now for food, shelter, aid etc is around  541.5 million. many ngo's have been working on making houses out of wood and such but they will not last forever. After 3 months there have been lots of efforts but little has been done.

Compare Haiti and Japan disasters

                                                                        HAITI                    JAPAN
MAGNITUDE:                                                      7                             9
AREA AFFECTED:                                        100 km squared        125 km squared
AFTER SHOCKS MAGNITUDE:                           4-5                             7
PEOPLE DEAD or MISSING:                           220,000                    18942
YEARS ESTIMATED TO REBUILD:                    10                              5
BUILDINGS DESTROYED:                               2933383                   457000
MONEY IT WILL TAKE TO REBUILD:              billions                  $500 billion
MONEY RAISED TO HELP:                            $57 million              $ 25 million

RECOMMENDATION: HAITI should improve building designs and be more strict about how buildings are built and JAPAN should keep doing what its doing right now.